Darcel Rockett
Don’t be afraid of the loud boom when you’re walking past a second-floor Kennedy-King College classroom in Englewood on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Clapping usually precedes the boom and the resonance of said boom from the throats of those in the fourth cohort of the Metropolitan Peace Academy (MPA) almost shakes the walls when it sounds off in a call-response kind of way. Students have to match the energy of the the director of training, Vanessa Perry DeReef, a former CPS teacher/counselor/administrator-turned community builder. MPA students are outreach workers with neighborhood organizations who are focused on community engagement and curbing violence, learning strategies on restorative justice practices, nonviolence, trauma-informed care and hyperlocal collaboration to professionalize the field of street outreach.
DeReef recalls telling her first Peace Academy students:
“I want you all to lift the roof off. I said one, two, three … boom, and they did it! And it was wonderful,” she said. “The whole point of it is to bring us to one accord. It pulls everyone in.”
And bring it, she does. DeReef is charged with creating a professional pathway for those in the street outreach community. Over a dozen men and women sit in her morning classes. But she has trained three MPA groups of students since she joined the MPA team in December 2017. The classroom walls are covered with sheets of easel-sized paper with notes about trends in today’s violence: “no rules of engagement, social media, savage mentality and no boundaries.” The signage rests next to other sheets with words like “Make yourself as well as your services appealing to their needs” and “identify and connect with a key influencer” and “self-care and the outreach worker”— a sheet that also talks about the symptoms of burnout.
The words inform passersby that this classroom is about works in progress — outreach workers trying to do their part in quelling city violence. Students debate and share knowledge among one another; and learn best practices and holistic approaches to street outreach in hopes of professionalizing the work. Over the course of 18 weeks, 144 hours in four-hour sessions, academy participants engage with DeReef and experts in trauma-informed practice, restorative justice and legal advocacy to broaden their skills, DeReef said.
“When you come here, it recharges your cape,” said DeReef, a lifelong South Shore resident. “You get more tools in your tool belt, and at the same time, you are recognized and appreciated, so that helps to go back out here and to engage and to put your life on the line and to show up at the most violent times when you’re most needed.”
Led by Metropolitan Family Services, the academy is an initiative of Communities Partnering for Peace (CP4P), a collaboration of nine neighborhood organizations on the South and West sides that came together two years ago. DeReef said a lot of the curriculum for the outreach workers is focused on self-care and building community, both allowing room for authentic conversations in the classroom setting (aka a safe space).
“What the academy does is bring everyone together, so now you see someone with a common interest, a common fight in them,” DeReef said. “An outreach worker is a yeoman’s task. It’s definitely something that takes a lot of commitment.”
Dialogue is encouraged at the MPA. Team-building exercises are sandwiched among lessons on the hierarchy of Latino gangs in Chicago and how outreach workers can establish professional relationships and boundaries with law enforcement. Debates on community issues take place among noshes of fruit, pastries and juice. Lessons where you tap nearby participants on the shoulder every time you are tapped on the shoulder reveal how frequently violence affects our daily lives.
DeReef knows the impact of violence since it was something she saw frequently during her years as a teacher and administrator at Chicago Public Schools. She said that during her time there, she lost many kids to violence. Now, in her role with the MPA, she still gets to have an impact on the kids by building the capacity of those who work with them on the streets.
“I am in a most impactful position in helping to curb violence and restore peace by working directly with those who see and interact with those most in need,” she said. “Creating a counternarrative for children is my passion, and I do that now by building people’s capacity to do their best work by becoming the best versions of themselves.”
Some academy participants have been in the prison system and come out wanting to make a difference. Others are former gang members trying to leave a different legacy in their neighborhood by affecting change. According to DeReef, it’s their former lives that give them credibility in the streets, and allow them the opportunity to be of service to others living those lives. Academy participants share their stories of transformation in the first session.
“A street outreach worker is everything and all things,” she said. “They respond to shootings; operate as a team to help de-escalate incidents between groups on the street — because of the credibility of the outreach worker, which comes as a result of the life that they used to be a part of, they can create that relationship with an individual on the street. They’re out there talking to individuals, building relationships, so that when anything happens, they know who they can go to, they know what they can do, and they know who are the key individuals.”
DeReef, who also aided in crafting MPA’s class curriculum with Dr. Troy Harden (Northeastern Illinois University) and Dr. Jerry Watson (University of Memphis), said she has to know who is in her community, so she can know how she can support them.
“We are a resilient people. In order for us to be better and restore our community, we have to be knowledgeable, we have to be educated so that we can do something different. If we continue to educate, then we know how we can heal one another,” she said.
One participant considers the Peace Academy one of the best things that has happened to Chicago — a place where she learned about collaboration and community, incorporating people that have come from the academy in her work with girls and gangs. Another student says he’s learning a lot of strategies from his peers; and another admits that MPA sessions are therapeutic. He sees it as a chance to network, a place to work on yourself, your life skills and your academic skills.
“Vanessa is a blessing and the glue to this program because she doesn’t come to this work with bias,” said field manager Rodney Phillips. “She might be the only person to allow us to be vulnerable. … There’s a lot of egos with men, but this class is a sacred space.”
Jesse Salazar agrees. He’s a field manager in the Little Village area and co-facilitator at MPA.
“People ask me aren’t you afraid to die out here doing this?” he said. “But there’s a thing called legacy, and I’d rather my kid say my dad died trying to save lives than the alternative.”
When the most recent cohort graduates in January, DeReef will have trained almost 100 outreach workers. And the curriculum, just like the participants, keeps evolving.
“We have these 36 lessons that are very specific to the outreach community. However, as things evolve and we see another gap or another need, we create another,” said DeReef, a doctoral candidate in industrial organizational psychology. “We’re really trying to give them the tools that they need for success. A lot of doors have been closed. We try to meet them at the table and open those doors or create your own table. What does your professional table of outreach look like? They don’t understand that they have a unique skill set. I tell them that all the time. We celebrate that, and they figure it out.”
DeReef says MPA’s students are committed to the work and their communities, and through the class, they know there is a community of people who are in this with them. No more “silo superheroes,” but now a community of superheroes with their capes.
“I call them my superheroes because they do the work that a lot of us are not able to do,” DeReef said. “Based on what we’re experiencing in the city, this is the right time for it.”
